Can You See Him Too?
by ColorMeContented
Summary: Three years after the fall John thinks he's gone crazy when he comes home one day and there's Sherlock making tea in his kitchen. Accepting that this hallucination is all he's going to get isn't that hard for the blogger and it doesn't take long for him to tell this fake Sherlock all the things he was never able to tell the real one. Then Lestrade ruins everything.


Can you see him too?

Summary: Three years after the fall John thinks he's gone crazy when he comes home one day and there's Sherlock making tea in his kitchen. Accepting that this hallucination is all he's going to get isn't that hard for the blogger and it doesn't take long for him to tell this fake Sherlock all the things he was never able to tell the real one. Then Lestrade ruins everything.

_Fluffy crack ahoy! Inspired by my friend saying that if Sherlock left John alone any longer than he had Watson would go crazy without him! I don't own anything T-T_

Can You See Him Too?

Get up, go to work, the surgery's been slow, catch a cab, Greg called, order takeaway, watch telly till nine, go to sleep.

Repeat.

John Watson has been tired for so many days now. Not tired of his commute or his nightly calls from Greg or Mycroft, they just want to make sure he's alright, and Mrs. Hudson, bless her heart, still leaves the morning tea. He's not tired of the surgery because if he doesn't do it, who else will? He's not tired of Molly dropping by with dinner, girlfriends coming and going at all hours of anytime, or even the occasional screaming match with Anderson on the street.

_He's not coming back damnit! Deal with it!_

I have.

But he hasn't, that's for damn sure.

He's tired of waiting. For Sherlock to give him what he's wanted more than breathing and life and food and for there to be milk in the fridge when he wants it just this one time. _Just don't be dead._

The days slip by into weeks which turn into months and John's limp is back, worse than ever, and all of a sudden it's been three years. Three years of avoiding his therapist because he can't, he just can't and looking anyone in the eye and lying through his teeth, he's fine, really he is. But every time he closes his eyes there it is the same as though it were yesterday. The pain on his face, the dull clack of Sherlock's phone hitting the ground as he steels himself for the fall. He's jumped. The sudden debilitating weight in John's lungs as he tries to convince himself that this isn't real it, can't be real.

But it is.

And that was three years ago.

And this is now.

And Sherlock is in his kitchen.

John stares dumbfounded at the back of his flatmate's tailored suit jacket as he stands idly in front of the kettle waiting for the water to be hot enough for tea. He's whistling some tune, a piece he once heard, composed perhaps? John's not sure but all of a sudden the kettle screams its readiness and Sherlock is grabbing two mugs from the cupboard and John can't do a thing but stare. After all this time he's been hoping and praying to whatever god he thought might listen to his pleas that this would happen. That one day he would come home from work and there would be Sherlock, butchering some poor piece of sheet music, hell, putting holes in the wall with a damn harpoon for all he cared. He would have given anything those past three years, willingly been shot, gone back to war, put in prison, lost his job, _anything_ to have Sherlock back.

John opened his mouth to speak and abruptly shut it.

This isn't right, he'd checked his pulse. Sherlock. Was. Dead.

A quirked smile spread across John's face as a more plausible thought occurred.

Had he focused so hard on Sherlock coming back to him that he'd created a hallucination of his flatmate to get himself by? Yea, that sounded like something his therapist would say. He could deal with that, and right at that moment he was willing to take whatever he could get if it meant spending one more minute with his detective. It didn't matter if it wasn't real, he had the chance now to say everything he had never been able to before, and he'd be damned if he was going to let that opportunity pass.

John continued to smile and took a step into the flat.

"Since when do you make tea?" he greeted, taking off his jacket and tossing it over the back of the sofa like he'd seen Sherlock just that morning.

"I thought it would be a good 'welcome home' gift, you like that sort of thing don't you?" Sherlock still hadn't turned to face John from where he stood in the kitchen but there was no doubt in the doctor's mind, whatever this was, it was definitely Sherlock. He took a seat in his chair and picked up the paper, hardly containing his joy as he pretended to skim the day's articles.

"Shouldn't I be making you some then? You're the one who hasn't been home in ages."

Then Sherlock laughed, full, honest, laughter and John's heart swelled at the sound. He would have gone insane years ago if he had known that _this_ was what it was going to be like.

Sherlock didn't answer, but simply brought in the tea, setting one mug in front of John and taking the other to his chair. For a very long moment john analyzed the mug on the table in front of him, was he expected to drink it? Was fake Sherlock honestly expecting him to drink fake tea while, in reality, he was talking to himself in his empty flat and hoping that Mrs. Hudson didn't hear him and call an ambulance?

Sherlock gave him an odd look over the rim of his own mug. "You're always bothering me to make my own tea and now that I have you're not even going to drink it?"

John blinked once at the cooling tea, then at Sherlock, noting the smallest trace of a smile on his best friend's face and shrugged. If he was going to do this he was going to do _all_ of it, so he scooped up the mug and took a drink.

It tasted real. He must have laid it out for himself before beginning his delusion…

Sherlock looked on expectantly.

…But Sherlock didn't need to know that.

"It's good… it's really good." John complimented, and then, deciding to push his luck, "it'd be even better if you did the washing after this though; I'm too tired for it tonight." Much to his surprise Sherlock gave a quick and determined nod before practically throwing down his mug and retreating into the kitchen where John could hear him turn on the tap and the sudden clinking of dishes being cleaned.

So this Sherlock would do whatever he wanted.

He could deal with that.

The rest of the night was spent listening to Sherlock clean, followed by crap telly and enjoying a presence he had been craving for three years, fully aware that he would eventually end up in a padded room somewhere.

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

..:-:..

In the morning Sherlock followed him to work.

John didn't know why he expected that his self-imposed hallucination would stay home during the day, but to tell the truth, he didn't mind all that much, he was quite enjoying having Sherlock around. That morning when he'd woken the dishes had been done. Assuming that he got up after going to sleep and finishing them himself, John had taken off to work with his new shadow right on his heels.

What he hadn't anticipated, though, was that while he was a figment of John's imagination, Sherlock was still Sherlock.

"Good morning Sarah," John greeted as he poked his head into her office, earning himself a sharp jab in the side from Sherlock's bony fingers.

"Good morning John, how are you today?"

"Fine!" he yelped when Sherlock jabbed him again.

"Are you alright?" asked Sarah, concern peppering her voice, "You seem rather jumpy today."

"Yea, I'm fine," John said, waving her off with a smile, "just a bit too much coffee, that's all." He shot a glare at his detective halting another well aimed poke to his abdomen.

Sherlock glowered down at him. "You know how to make it stop John," he growled, "stop ignoring me and I'll not poke you."

"You miserable twat-"

"John!"

John started, remembering that he was still standing in front of his boss' office and of course it looked like he had just called her a miserable twat because no one else could see the idiot with the cheekbones assaulting him in the hallway. _Shit_.

"No- no, I didn't mean you – I just remembered something stupid that a… friend said. You know I should get to my office before my shift starts, cheers." John turned and practically sprinted down the hallway, slamming the door to his office once he and Sherlock were both inside and leaned heavily on the door, hand pressed to his forehead in exasperation.

"You just made me call my boss a twat, my _boss_ Sherlock."

"Why are you ignoring me John." Sherlock demanded.

John shook his head, looking incredulously at his friend, "Because, you idiot, you're not real! I can't be seen at work walking down the hall and talking to someone who isn't there, this is a hospital, they can send me to the psychiatric ward a lot quicker than Mrs. Hudson can from the flat!"

Sherlock flinched ever-so-slightly and his face lost its childish pout.

"You think I'm not real?" he asked.

"Of course you're not; I made you up in my head because I couldn't handle having you die on me before I could tell you that I loved you." Sherlock tried to interrupt but John cut him off with the wave of his hand, "Nope, don't say anything, I'm telling you. I loved your deductions, your three a.m. violin recitals, the bullet holes you put in the wall, your thinking pose, that look on your face when you were sure you had the right answer, your hair, the way you put up with plebeians like Molly and Greg and Mrs. Hudson and me not because you had to but because you wanted to. I loved you, and as soon as I realized it you threw yourself off a building. So whatever you've got to say, Sherlock Holmes, I don't want to hear it!"

John huffed and brushed past a dumbstruck Sherlock to his desk when there was a small knock on the door.

"That'll be Mr. Duspin," John pointed to a chair in the corner, "just go sit down until my shift's over, then we can go home."

Sherlock obeyed and John didn't hear a single word from him even after they'd arrived back at the flat. And John was getting pretty tired of it. Honestly, when he told this Sherlock about his feelings he didn't expect him to act so… scandalized, so not like the real Sherlock would have acted. He wished this Sherlock would brush it off and prattle on about some severed head he was keeping in the icebox like what John had said didn't change a thing, or tell him about the fingers he had jammed in the toaster. This was just awkward, bloody awful and awkward.

Once he'd been staring at the newspaper too long for him to have been doing anything other than hiding from his flatmate, john was ready to confront Sherlock about his continued silence when the doorbell rang. John stood immediately and bounded to the door.

"That must be Greg for pub night," he murmured, taking one glance back at Sherlock before wrenching the door open and greeting his friend with a smile.

A fake smile mind you because Sherlock looked absolutely _devastated_, not like one of his three day sulks, no, nothing like John was used to. Rather his friend looked completely done as he sat in his chair, half lidded eyes trained towards the floor though John was sure he wasn't really seeing it. Maybe he'd broken his own hallucination with his emotionally charged outburst. Stranger things had happened.

"Hello Greg," said john as he grabbed his jacket, "ready to go?"

Lestrade raised an eyebrow as the body in the other chair caught his eye over John's shoulder.

"I didn't know you had someone over, John if you want to stay here with her you could have just calle-" Greg's sentence was cut short as his eyes narrowed then widened before crinkling at the corners as a grin lit up his features.

"I see you're back then." He greeted, holding his hand up in a wave to Sherlock who had just glanced up to acknowledge the DI's presence before going back to his staring match with the floorboards.

John's eyebrows raised and he whirled around, looking from Greg to Sherlock and back again, mouth gaping like a fish. He finally settled for pointing to Sherlock and gaping at Greg.

"You can see him too?" he finally asked.

"Yea," Lestrade said slowly, "have others not been able to?"

His question fell on deaf ears though as John turned to look at Sherlock, his friend completely forgotten. The detective, aware that he was being watched, raised his gaze from the floor to lock with John's. Minutes passed without a word until Lestrade uneasily excused himself and left, not at all jealous of anyone who was going to be present for the coming conversation, slamming the door as he went.

The jar of the slam shook both Sherlock and John from their stare. Sherlock was the first to look away, a pained expression returning to his face.

"You loved me, all this time, and I thought that leaving you would be the best way to protect you." He stated matter-of-factly.

"From Moriarty." John clarified.

Sherlock nodded.

John sighed, "And I just screamed at the top of my lungs at my very-not-dead best friend that I loved him in the middle of my workplace and – oh my god, you were in my office all day, I thought my patients looked nervous… I gave Mr. Cadenn a prostate exam –" he covered his face with both hands, "I'm going to be fired."

He heard a low chuckle as Sherlock stood and wrapped his arms around John's shoulders, his previous depression completely and suddenly forgotten.

"You are. There is a ninety nine point eight percent chance that every patient you had today will complain to the hospital and get you fired by tomorrow morning," Sherlock said, "I guess that means you'll be a man without a job, luckily, I'm looking for a blogger."

John reached his arms around Sherlock's middle, grabbing tight onto the back of his jacket, "We're both idiots aren't we."

"Yes, I suppose we are," Sherlock laughed, John moved to end the hug but Sherlock refused to let him budge, "Hold on, John, there's one thing this conversation is missing."

"And what's that?" John asked.

Sherlock pressed his lips to the top of John's hair, tightening his grip on his blogger just a little bit more.

"I love you too John."


End file.
